Even as Benicar lawsuits mount over sprue-like enteropathy concerns, Benicar is rapidly marching towards more widespread use.

Benicar is a blood pressure medication manufactured by Daiichi Sankyo. Like all drugs, Benicar has a set length of time before the patent expires. In the case of Benicar, the drug’s patent expires in 2016.

Once the patent expiration happens, Daiichi Sankyo loses exclusive rights to Benicar. This means that other companies can make generic Benicar, forcing Daiichi Sankyo to compete with lower-priced competitors, and generics to compete with each other. Usually, this lowers the cost of a drug substantially, and may lead to more widespread use of Benicar. However, there are serious safety concerns about Benicar.

In June of 2014, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a safety announcement about Benicar. This statement said that the FDA had received a large number of reports of Benicar side effects. Specifically, the FDA received reports of “sprue-like enteropathy.”

Sprue-like enteropathy is the name for a constellation of symptoms often associated with celiac disease. Celiac disease symptoms are painful and debilitating, and can include problems like chronic diarrhea, severe stomach pain, and other serious problems. Most patients with celiac disease can control their symptoms by carefully restricting their diet. Celiac disease symptoms may totally go away if patients completely cut gluten out of their diet, though this diet offers little benefit for non-Celiac disease patients. However, a subset of celiac disease patients’ symptoms do not improve, even with strict exclusion diets.

Benicar lawsuits allege that many Benicar patients suffered from celiac disease symptoms for years, and had no way of knowing that Benicar could cause side effects mimicking celiac disease symptoms. Allegedly, Benicar patients suffered for months, even years, with symptoms. Some Benicar lawsuits have alleged that patients suffered dangerous weight loss of more than 100 pounds due to chronic malnutrition from celiac disease symptoms.

Multiple Benicar lawsuits have been filed by patients that have allegedly suffered from Benicar side effects. These Benicar lawsuits allege that Daiichi Sankyo did not do enough to protect the public from the risk of unclassified sprue, or sprue-like enteropathy. On top of this, Benicar lawsuits further allege that Daiichi Sankyo did not warn patients that Benicar could cause celiac disease symptoms, which caused them to suffer for years when a “cure” to their “celiac disease” was as simple as changing to another blood pressure medication.

Benicar lawsuits typically seek to recoup the cost of medical care, lost wages, compensation for pain and suffering, legal fees, and other costs allegedly stemming from sprue-like enteropathy caused by Benicar.